Wallkill seeks to lessen cost of police visits to Walmart

TOWN OF WALLKILL — The town may soon be looking at ways to reduce how often the police go to Walmart, including, possibly, having the retailer contribute to the cost of sending cars there so often.

On average, town police have been going there a couple of times a day, Supervisor Dan Depew said.

The reasons vary — petty larceny reports are a big part of it, but there are also some cases of grand larceny and credit card fraud, police Chief Robert Hertman said. An arrest there can occupy two or three hours of an officer's time, Depew said, since the suspects sometimes have to be processed at the police station and arraigned. This isn't a new issue, he said — the number of calls there for the past few years have been similarly high.

"It's just gotten to the point where we're basically running their loss-prevention department for them," Depew said. Depew said he plans to bring the issue up at next week's Town Board work session. One possibility, he said, is asking Walmart to contribute to the cost somehow. "I'm up for anything, but they need to come to the table with something," he said.

In the Town of Newburgh, Walmart pays off-duty cops to provide security and they're allowed to do so in uniform. Town of Newburgh police Chief Michael Clancy said this has reduced the number of calls there as the off-duty officers can handle some of the more minor complaints that they would have to send a patrol car to deal with otherwise.

Walmart spokesman Bill Wertz said the store is working with the town to reduce the number of calls.